Alexey Dmitrievich Shirov (Russian: Алексей Дмитриевич Широв, Latvian: Aleksejs Širovs) was born in Riga in what was then Soviet Latvia. He has a distinctive aggressive and imaginative style that has won him many admirers throughout his career. He has ranked among the world's top players since 1990. He frequently worked his way deep into the World Championship cycles, coming as close to the pinnacle of chess as winning the right to challenge Garry Kasparov for the Classical World Championship, meeting Viswanathan Anand in the final of the 2000 Knockout Tournament and playing in the final match of the World Chess Cup (2007) and playing in the 2007 Candidates. He has been officially ranked as high as number 2 in the world.

Championships

<Age> Shirov became the U16 World Champion in 1988 and was runner-up in 1990 in the World Junior Championship behind Ilya M Gurevich.

<National> He won the Spanish championship in 2002 with 8.5/9.

<World> Shirov’s initial entry to the World Championship cycle was in February 1990 at the age of 17, when he shared =1st at the Zonal Tournament held in Lvov, (1) thereby qualifying for the Manila Interzonal held in June and July of that year. There he scored 7.5/13, half a point outside of the qualifying group to the Candidates. (2) He qualified for the 1993 Interzonal in Biel, this time finishing with 8/13, but again missed the qualifying group for the Candidates, this time on tiebreak as Anand, who qualified, also scored 8/13. (3). In 1997, Shirov was seeded directly into the 2nd round of the FIDE Knockout Tournament in Groningen that was to produce a challenger for FIDE world championship title occupied by Anatoly Karpov. He defeated Julio Ernesto Granda Zuniga, Gilberto Milos, Vladimir Akopian in the early rounds before losing to the eventual winner, Anand, in the quarter finals. (4)

In 1998 Shirov was invited by the World Chess Council (a Kasparov creation) to play a ten-game match against Vladimir Kramnik to select a challenger for Kasparov. Shirov won the Shirov - Kramnik WCC Candidates Match (1998) with two wins, no losses and seven draws. However the plans for the Kasparov-Shirov match fell through when financial backing that had been verbally promised by the Andalusian regional government in Spain failed due to a change in government in that province, and no other sponsors could be found and the momentum for organizing the match was eventually lost. (5) Shirov then went on to play in the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (1999) where he was again seeded directly into the 2nd round, and defeated Ivan Sokolov, Milos and Nigel Short in the early rounds before losing to Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu, again in the quarter finals.

In the parallel championship cycle being run to produce a challenger for the new Classical World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, the 2002 Dortmund tournament doubled as the Candidates event to produce the challenger. In this event, Shirov defeated Topalov in a playoff to determine the winner of Group 1 (of 2). He then played and lost by 2.5-0.5 (+2 =1) to eventual winner and new challenger for the Classical title Peter Leko in one of the preliminary Candidates matches.

A full list of all the matches played by Shirov are listed at <User: amadeus >’s excellent page: Game Collection: Match Shirov!. The most significant exhibition matches played outside of the context of tournament tiebreakers, World Championship, World Cup and other tournament knockout contests, and Candidates matches were against Simen Agdestein in 1992 (won +3 -1); 1995 against Jeroen Piket (won +3 =5 -0), in 1998 vs Zbynek Hracek (won +5 -1 =0); in 1999 vs Judit Polgar (won +5 -0 =1); in 2004 against David Navara (won +1 -0 =1); and in 2012 against Viktor Laznicka (won +2 =4). In December 2013 in Moscow, he played a best-of-six match, the Battle of the Generations (2013), against Russian wunderkind GM Daniil Dubov and won 5-1 (+4 =2). 10 months later in October 2014, he played a 6 game match against Dutch wunderkind Anish Giri at the Unive matches played during the annual event at Hoogoven in the Netherlands, losing 1.5-4.5 (-3 =3). In November 2014, he played a 6-game match against Venezuelan GM Eduardo Patricio Iturrizaga Bonelli, losing by 2.5-3.5 (+1 -2 =3).

Rapid/blitz

Shirov won the 2011 and 2012 Paul Keres memorial Tournaments in Tallinn. In February 2012, he won the Aivars Gipslis Memorial in Riga with 9/9. In September 2012, he won the Sigulda Open Rapid Chess Championship 2012 in Latvia. In December 2012, he came =1st in the European Rapid Championship and in April 2013, he won the 2nd Casino Royal championship, also in Latvia. In May 2013, he won the Incukalns District Open in Latvia. In August 2014, he was =4th with 8/11 at the 7th Stage of the Russian Rapid Grand-Prix 2014. In December 2014, he won the Incukalns District Open Rapid Chess Championship and the Malpils district rapid chess championship.

Team play

<Olympiad> Shirov played top board for Latvia at the Olympiads of 1992, 1994, 2012 and 2014, and for Spain at the Olympiads of 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. He did not participate in the 2002 Olympiad.

<World Team Championship> Shirov played on board 1 for Latvia at the 1993 World Team Championship, winning individual silver and helping his team to 6th place.

<European Team Championship> Shirov represented Spain in 1999, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009 and 2011, playing top board on all occasions except in 2011 when he played board 2. He won individual gold in 1999.

<European Club Cup> Shirov played in the ECC in the years 1993, 1995,1996, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Most recently he has played for the Yugra team (2012) and Malachite (2013 & 2014). During this time he has won individual gold and silver, 2 team golds, 4 team silvers, and 3 team bronzes. (6)

<National Leagues> Shirov played board 2 for the Ural Sverdlovsk team in the Russian Premier League from 2006 until 2009 inclusive, winning 2 team golds, 1 team silver, 1 team bronze, and 2 individual golds, and two individual silvers during this period. He absented himself from the competition for two years before rejoining it in 2012 when he played board 2 for Yugra, and in 2013 and 2014, when he played for Malakhit Ekaterinburg, winning team and individual silver (on board 4) in 2013 and team gold and individual silver (also on board 4) in 2014. In 2015, he again played for Malakhit Ekaterinburg, this time on board 1 where he won an individual silver.

Shirov is an author who wrote Fire on Board: Shirov's Best Games (1995) and Fire on Board, Part 2: 1997–2004 (2005). He has also produced numerous ChessBase Fritztrainer DVDs, which deal mainly with the openings and which are listed at his Wikipedia article (linked below).

Personal

In 1994, Alexey married an Argentine, Verónica Alvarez. He then moved to Tarragona and became a citizen of Spain. He subsequently divorced Alvarez and was married to Lithuanian GM Viktorija Cmilyte from 2001-2007 before divorcing again and marrying Russian WIM Olga Dolgova in 2010. He is again playing for Latvia, where he is that country's top player.

Rating and ranking

Shirov has been amongst the world's top 100 players since July 1990 and has remained in that group since. He was in the world's top 10 from January 1992 until April 2001, throughout 2003, for most of 2008 and in May and July 2010.

The highest rating achieved by Shirov was 2755 was in January 2008 when he was ranked #4 in the world. His highest FIDE world ranking was #2 behind Karpov (Kasparov had been suspended from the FIDE ratings tables) throughout 1994 when his rating was 2715 in January before rising to 2740 in July. Including Kasparov, his highest ranking was #3 after Kasparov and Karpov.

Penguincw: < Poulsen: Ï'll second that - although he is not as super as he used to be ... >

Agreed, but he has recently played against another Latvian GM past his prime: Evgeni Ellinovich Sveshnikov (as in the guy who invented the variation in the Sicilian). Shirov is currently leading 3 1/2-1/2. Of course, Shirov is rated about 300 elo higher.

Penguincw: Congrats to Shirov for the huge upset, as he beat Kramnik with white in an OCB ending to gain 6.1 points, as he is now at 2702.1, 46th in the world. Still a far cry from his 2755 rating, but he is now currently the 5th oldest player rated above 2700 live (behind Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Anand and Adams). There are currently 49 players rated abouve 2700.

Today, he has white against Sjugirov, and a draw (or win) will maintain his rating above 2700.

TheFocus: <I never did any special training, but in my childhood, on my own, I tried to read every book on combinations and tactics that I could get my hands on. And endings too, by the way, although Averbakh’s multi-volume opus was hard to master. Probably I should repeat again that the more different ideas and motifs you know, the easier it will be to find a tactical solution at the board (if it exists) and calculate the variations> - Alexey Shirov.

Penguincw: 2 days late, but Alexey Shriov wins the Riga Open with an impressive score of 7.5/9 (+6,-0,=3). He edged Hovhannisyan on tiebreaks. Shirov entered the tournament as the 1st/2nd seed, as he and compatriot Igor Kovalenko both were rated 2702.

Chess Is More: Why did he leave Spain, I wonder? Creative differences? His home is in Latvia, but he was born in Latvian SSSR, NOT "SOVIET LATVIA" as some imbecile has written in his biography further up this page. No sane person talks about "Soviet Latvia" or "Soviet Belarus", "Soviet Armenia", et cetera. Hello??

It's: LATVIAN SSSR, ARMENIAN SSSR and so on. Who wrote this garbage bio, <Harry> the drunk from the Cafe'??!!

So yes, <Latvian SSR> has more currency, and is probably more correct. But there's an awful lot of "insane" people using "Soviet Latvia".

There should be some measure of patience for people trying to make a sincere effort to cover an entire world's worth of different players, while they themselves have little in-depth exposure to the vast number of different cultures that cover the surface of our globe.

Now, how would you like me to berate you, and call you an idiot for using SSSR instead of SSR?

Chess Is More: zanzibar, I'm sorry. It wasn't nice of me to use denigrating language.

And yes, I was wrong too. It is SSR of course, not SSSR. The first 'S' stands for 'soyus'=union and is not used when naming the different republics. Stupid mistake by me. The other two 'S's stand for 'socialist' and 'soviet'.

as told by one of the commentators of chess.com GM Williams i think his name is, tells Shirov took a 'half point bye' in round 5, meaning Shirov will not be playing, his reason is rather of superstitious nature saying that he does not play when he changes restaurants to eat his meal

so in 4 rounds he has been eating at the same restaurant but then decided to change restaurants on round 5, that's why he will not play...

Well, only one wife at a time. And arguably only two nationalities: Argentinian and "chess". As the slogan says, gens una sumus.

Presumably he is tall, good looking, successful in his field with a reasonably mild personality. Thus, able to attract wives. But as one stops receiving invites to top tournaments, how does a chess player earn a living?

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